We Still Have Time to Change pt. 2

“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself. – Rumi

“Love is the deepest gift that we could be ever be given by someone and it’s the greatest gift that we could ever give to ourselves.” –Mastin Kipp

Continuing on the theme from last week, I’d like to write about one of my experiences, as a Reiki practitioner. I learned a great lesson during this period of my life.

For those of you who don’t know what Reiki is, it’s also known as, The Usui System of Natural Healing. It’s an ancient laying on of hands healing technique, and can be used to heal health issues, life situations, mental and spiritual issues, in other words, virtually anything we will ever face. I won’t go into the history of how Reiki came to this country now. It’s much too long. Besides, you can do some research on the internet if you’re interested. What I want to share is my experience of using it as a spiritual practice.

My husband and I were on a spiritual quest when we were introduced to Reiki. Since the church we had grown up in used hands on healing, we felt immediately connected to the practice and decided to become initiated.

Some time after I was initiated into second degree, I volunteered to give Reiki once or twice a week to the daughter for an old family friend. She had full-blown AIDS. This was early in the days of the AIDS epidemic, and not much was known about it. After my short time of practicing Reiki and seeing amazing results, I felt confident that I could be the conduit through which L could be healed. The Reiki practitioner is just a conduit for the healing energy, you see, but in my hubris, I wanted her to be physically healed. I didn’t understand that healing can take many forms. The person receiving the Reiki is in partnership with the energy, I was just the garden hose through which the energy flowed.

I think it’s a common feeling among people when they find a new talent or skill to be excited about what they can do, without understanding the depths it will take to become a master of the practice. Offering Reiki to L for the remainder of her life, was a huge lesson for me. No one knows the life contract, as Carolyn Myss puts it, of the person who has requested the healing. In the case of L, there were many family and personal issues she needed to deal with before leaving the planet. As the months wore on, and her health continued to deteriorate, I learned a great lesson from her and her family. Life is ephemeral, and death can be a beautiful, mysterious process. L and her family took the time to heal old wounds and peel back the layers that had kept unconditional love at bay. I became a humble witness to the transformation of their family dynamics.

At L’s memorial service, I got to observe the love shown to the family, and from the family to all those present. It was one of the most loving experiences of my life, and I was grateful that I got to help with the healing process of L and her family.

That experience taught me that to become a true healer takes lots of practice, and personal work. A healer can’t do their job well unless they have dealt with their own dark places. At that point in my life, I had many dark places that needed to be examined and exposed to the light. Reiki has been a powerful force in my own self-healing journey. And if that’s all I use it for, that and to help my family and friends, then that’s a wonderful use of my practice.

I’d like to close this post by sharing the Principles of Reiki with you. These are principles that could be used by anyone to help them improve their life, whether they are a Reiki practitioner or not. They’ve been of great comfort to me.

Just for today, do not worry,
Just for today, do not anger,
Honor your parents, teachers and elders,
Earn your living honestly,
Show gratitude to every living thing.

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6 thoughts on “We Still Have Time to Change pt. 2”

Thank you for this. I, too, am a Reiki practitioner. I have not been using my skills very much recently. I can go for long stretches feeling as though I don’t really “do” anything for anyone. Then there is a person with whom I find an immediate and deep connection. Sometimes this is a complete stranger, sometimes a person I have known quite awhile.
When I first began Reiki, I would become physically ill after working on someone. Ground. I needed to ground. I almost quit the practice before someone worked with me on better grounding.
I have been blessed to work with many people dying of cancer. Often times I am one of the very last people to see them before they die. I know I have helped bring them a bit of peace and acceptance, and I believe there is nothing better than being able to help someone die a good, comfortable, accepting death.

Emilie,
It is good to know you do Reiki too. Do you find that being with people during their dying process makes you less afraid of death? That’s been the case for me. It’s interesting how Reiki brings up the things we need to work on most.

Yes and no. The people I’ve worked with have been in such pain. I don’t want to die that way.
I am not so much afraid of death as afraid of a long, painful death. And however it comes, I’m not interested in seeing it for quite awhile!

Emilie, L was in a lot of pain too. I wouldn’t choose to die that way. She did seem to accept her situation though as our sessions continued. That made her transition so much more gentle.

My father had heart disease and the last few years of his life weren’t very pleasant either. However, his attitude was that we experience what we experience for whatever reason, and he embraced that. The only thing that was not to his liking was when they put him in a nursing home. He wanted to die at home. Which he did on the day hospice brought him home. I’ve been with other people who’ve felt great fear in their dying process. I don’t recommend that at all. It was painful for all of us involved in that process.

I can certainly relate. My case was of a dear friend who had a major headache. Rather than Reiki be offered to comfort, my view was that the headache and I were at odds. So my friend’s headache remained and I got to share deeply in her misery. It was definitely a 2×4 type of lesson for me. Now I would offer deep, gentle love as my intention so that the headache could be loved and not fought. Amazing what wisdom can offer.

Sue, Oh, yeah, I know that one too. My problem was learning to get out of the way of the energy. I wanted to manipulate it. Once I learned that the Energy knows where to go, that helped me relax and just allow it to flow without tension, or pain on my part. Thanks for your reply.